We'll not bother you too much this week as you guys get over your NASL Grand Finals hangover. I don't think anything that happened in GSL last week really compared to the awesomeness of the showdown in Ontario, CA.

Well, except that part where Nada beat Keen with just reapers and hellions. And that thing where Huk won all of his games. And that part where all of the Code-S players wore the most ridiculous make-up imaginable.

....check out that last part, at least. It will make you laugh, then it will make you cry, and maybe then make you laugh again.

Dream opened with the popular reactor hellion open which Leenock held off with ease. In fact, it was actually Dream who would take early worker damage after letting in a number of speedlings backdoor into his base.

The first zergling backdoor killed a few SCVs and destroyed a crucial stimpak researching techlab. Though not a major blow, it was the beginning of a deep decline for Dream. On his next attempt to push out, he had several of his marines killed by a baneling trap which further hampered his ability to pressure Leenock.

Knowing that his opponent had been left to expand and drone up unchecked, Dream was forced into taking his third base prematurely in order to stay on even footing. However, he didn't have the troops to hold such a brazen attempt, as Leenock's muta-ling-bane production was already too powerful.

Leenock simply snowballed out of control, and easily crushed Dream's troops every time he tried to move out. Dream saw the futility of the situation and GG'd.

Dream: - 1.5/5Leenock was prepared for his every move.

Leenock: - 4/5He had total control of the game, and never looked to ever be in any danger.

After an inconsequential hellion-banshee opener from Dream, the game was mostly a repeat of game one. This time, Leenock made excellent use of mutalisks and burrowed banelings to make sure that Dream never got any semblance of control on the map. Leenock never even had to attack Dream straight up, simply forcing to chase his mutas around and run into burrow traps.

Eventually Leenock went up to five bases and thirty mutalisks, which Dream simply could not combat. Muta/ling/infestor finished off Dream's last army which ended the game.

Dream: - 1.5/5Was completely at Leenock's mercy, being forced to put out fires everywhere while never causing his opponent any trouble.

Leenock: - 4/5Excellent harassment to keep the pressure off himself all game.

Tassadar pulled off his nexus first build safely against Noblesse's rax expansion, and thus began the macro war. Tassadar went to the upgraded zealot-archon mix that has become trendy as of late while Noblesse went for the usual marine-marauder-medivac.

The result was fairly one-sided. Tassadar was highly aggressive with his forces, attacking into Noblesse's natural and keeping him on his toes. The battles ended with fairly even damage done to both sides, but Tassadar kept the initiative by being the aggressor. He used this map control to stay ahead on expansions, though the population counts would stay largely the same.

Eventually, Tassadar and Noblesse crashed their maxed out armies into each other. Despite getting his entire army showered with EMPs and having no psyonic storm, Tassadar one-sidedly crushed Noblesse's force simply based on the chargelots + archons >>> marauders-against-a-wall counter relationship and took game one with ease.

Noblesse: 1.5/5Could never get out of the trap of being constantly forced to trade forces and rebuild his army.

Noblesse went for the supposedly safe command center before barracks build on Crevasse, but his two rax into factory follow-up proved to be too risky. Tassadar performed a one gate expansion into fast four gate pressure against which one bunker was simply not enough. Noblesse pulled many SCVs to repair the buildings at his wall, but lost an enormous amount of his workers in the process. By the time Noblesse had secured his choke, he had already given up a massive lead.

From there, it was just a matter of procedure for Tassadar to go for his zealot-archon composition once more and trample all over Noblesse.

Noblesse: 1.5/5In retrospect, more bunkers would have been a better idea. Why cut corners after doing a greedy build?

In a recent trend that went mostly unnoticed due to every protoss dying in the preceeding GSL tournament, both players opted to NOT four-gate to begin. Vanvanth went for a fast three stalker into three gate blink build, while Puzzle went for 3 gate robo with a slower blink.

Vanvanth successfully hit the timing before immortals with his blink stalkers, and even got vision up Puzzle's ramp before a force field went down. However, he botched his first blink hilariously, only blinking up two stalkers while the rest moved forward about an inch and remained on the low ground. This trapped the first two stalkers behind a FF, while the remaining stalkers got to wait around until the immortal finished.

Vanvanth had no choice but to keep throwing his troops forward but Puzzle held relatively easily with the help of immortals. Once he had his own blink upgrade, it was pretty easy for him to move forward and take the game.

Both players opened with gas first barracks builds, but asd gave his a cheesy twist by proxying both his factory and starport outside Happy's main. However, Happy used an incredible psychic maphack to guess asd's tactic without even seeing it, and sent a hellion to the proxy buildings just as the starport was about to land for the tech-lab switch. All Happy had to do was keep his hellion on hold to the left of the tech lab to effectively prevent asd from making any units except marines.

Okay, that was the amusing part. Happy rode his lead in such an incredibly passive manner that asd was allowed to actually go up to three bases towards the end of the game. Not that Happy had any chance of losing; he just took his sweet time before smashing his opponent with mech.

Happy: 3.5/5Boringly passive, but deserves a lot of credit for his maphack like read.

It wasn't the most well played game in the world, but it managed to be pretty amusing. As is the normal pattern on Terminus, one of the players did some early game banshee crap that didn't really matter since everyone just goes three base vs three base on the map anyway.

So, with a ton of money in hand, Happy went for his usual mech style while asd responded with marauder based bio. At first, asd played very sloppily, attacking into tanks and letting a lot of units get picked off due to lack of attention. Though he was playing quite passively, Happy slowly but surely made progress into asd's territory.

Somewhere along the line, player-turned-caster Qxc began to talk about the proper way to play mech, making some rather creepy analogies about how you should "burn his house down while he's at the grocery store." And seemingly on cue, asd took the advice and started counter-attacking instead of throwing his units at the slowly moving tank wall.

Happy's response to these counter-attacking plays was probably some of the worst we've ever seen. He seemed extremely flustered, failing to lift off a single building against mainly marauder forces. The upside of his continued failure to defend himself against these backdoor attacks was that Qxc and Wolf were allowed to drive the "burn someone's house while they're out" analogy into the ground. It was ridiculously corny, but at the same time pretty entertaining. It was something of a "coming of age" moment for the Wolf-Qxc casting duo, and I was glad to see it.

Oh, back to the game. Anyway, Happy got ransacked at all of his bases while he floundered around not knowing what to do with his massive tank force. Then he started moving his tank force around along some unsafe avenues, which led to them getting picked off slowly as well. The no money - no army downward spiral began for Happy, which ended in a much delayed GG.

Happy: 1/5Dismal crisis management.

asd: 3.5/5Good idea to backdoor halfway through the game.

Qxc and Wolf: 4.5/5Added some much needed humor to a game that wasn't quite crossing the "so bad it's good" line.

There was cute mix-up in the early game, with each player getting his share of damage in with cloaked banshees or blue flame hellions. However, it didn't tip the balance to either one side, so we got to see HappyMech vs asdBio once more.

This time around, asd didn't play nearly as well, and perhaps we could say Happy was much better. Happy kept control of all the lanes with his mech, not allowing the same devastating backdoor attacks from the previous game. With that option out of the window, it turned into a pretty straight forward mech steamroll game.

sC did a banshee expand opener while MVP went for reactor hellion pressure. Both openers did some decent damage, but MVP's position looked a little bit better going into the mid-game. Both players decided to go for the recently popular mech style of siege tanks-blue flame hellions-vikings. This resulted in some mid-game hellion skirmishes and harassment on both sides, with neither player really getting the better of the other.

MVP initially appeared to come out ahead after transitioning to thors before a big engagement, but the balance stayed very even as both players continued into the late game on four bases a piece. MVP decided to transition to battlecruisers from his stalemate position.

It turned out that MVP didn't need to reveal his BCs in order to break the deadlock as one positioning slip up from sC saw his army take huge beating. Nonetheless, MVP's battlecruisers proved to be an effective clean-up force.

Byun went for a recently rare TvZ opening, 1-1-1 into expand, while Zenio went for a standard hatch first with fast banelings. Zenio did a fantastic job playing safe, getting an overseer, a few banelings, and an extra queen to be safe against every possible move while getting a spire, a third base, and a hidden fourth.

Byun engaged in some semi-successful drop tactics, but the game inevitably hurtled towards the multi-base late game phase. Byun's use of drops made sure Zenio's base count didn't get obscenely high, but still left his zerg opponent with the resources to put together his favored late game composition.

The game was decided by the eventual 200/200 battle. Unfortunately, it wasn't very epic as Byun made that fatal terran error of being caught out of siege mode. Zenio's cleaned up Byun's tank-ghost-marine army with almost pure double-ling, before his infestors and broodlords could even enter the fray. After getting so thoroughly crushed in the 200/200 fight, Byun just couldn't recover. He tried to hold on the best he could, but Zenio simply built up an overpowering economy and swept through Byun's defenses.

Zenio took a nice advantage early by delaying MVP's reactor hellion. The game quickly proceded to Zenio pumping muta-doubleling off of three bases while MVP played it safe and prepared for a slow-push across the map.

Seeing that MVP was not adequately prepared for mutalisks, Zenio did a smart counter-attack with his mutas to force MVP into a tough spot where both attacking and retreating would be disastrous. MVP opted to abandon his base and try to finish his opponent off but Zenio had sufficient forces to defend himself and take the game.

Byun went for a one rax fast expand while sC did a banshee expand. The banshee was forced back after only 3 kills, putting sC far behind early on.

Both players began poking out as they took their thirds, with Byun able to get the more aggressive positioning. Byun managed to shut down sC's attempt for a double marine drop, cementing a pretty hard contain on sC around his third base. sC tried a flanking that failed badly, allowing Byun to continue his containment. Byun eventually used his faster fourth base and superior positioning to seal the deal and take the game from sC.

Byun went gas first for a quick banshee attack while Mvp one rax fast expanded into second barracks and factory. Byun's build decided to get just one banshee out before transitioning into a blue flame hellion drop and an expansion of his own. It turned out to be a great move, as Mvp lost quite a few SCVs to an unexpected blue flame hellion drop.

Mvp tried a weird marine hellion raven push, but was easily held by some blue flame hellions and unsieged tanks. Having a siege tank advantage, Byun was able to push to Mvp's front, forcing all of his SCVs to be pulled in defense. Mvp barely held on as Byun continued to push forward. Strangely, Mvp insisted on being the aggressor despite having less units (less hellions, tanks and vikings).

Byun landed his vikings in Mvp's tank line while pushing with his tanks and hellion to massacre Mvp's army and set up a contain. From this position Byun was able to use his contain to slow push Mvp's third while securing his own at the gold base. Byun then used his huge economy advantage to roll through Mvp's army and take the game.

Nada did an absolutely amazing build, pumping reapers and hellions while getting a banshee and transitioning into blue flame hellions. Nada's build was just awesome, abusing the hell out of Keen's rax-expand with three kinds of units that crush un-upgraded marines. Keen got completely, utterly owned.

Nada: 5/5Keen: ??/5 - Impossible to tell how he should have held it off the top of my head without one basing or having micro

Supernova went for a one barracks fast expand while rushing for siege tanks while HongUn did a one gate expand into a four warp gate followup. HongUn hit at a great timing with his four gate attack, punishing SuperNova for cutting corners on defense and ending the game.

Nada went for a two barracks expand, hiding the second barracks to deceive his opponent. HongUn tried to do a two gate robo expand, but was forced to cancel his nexus after falling for Nada's deception. HongUn put down a few more gateways and expanded more safely at a later timing.

Afterwards, HongUn engaged Nada with a small sentry immortal push which was easily defeated by some great micro from Nada.. Nada followed up a few minutes later with a ghost – marine - maurader medivac push that HongUn just had no answer for.

Both players went barracks fast expand, with Keen going for multiple barracks while SuperNova chose faster tech. SuperNova got a nice scan to see all of the barracks and put down some bunkers to cover his mech transition.

Keen set up an early contain on SuperNova, but Supernova was able to slowly push forward with his mech units and secure his side of his map anyway. Despite some very cool nuke play to force unsieges, Keen just couldn't overcome Supernova's mech play and superior macro.

The players spawned in close positions on Metalopolis, with HongUn opening phoenix and SuperNova opening cloak banshee. HongUn's phoenixes were able to take out SuperNova's first banshee before cloak research completed, totally wrecking SuperNova's plans. SuperNova quickly switched to a siege-expand while HongUn expanded himself with a robotics facility and some gateways.

There was a large period of inactivity as both players macroed up, with SuperNova allowing HongUn to put together a max army of every single protoss ground unit. Somehow SuperNova thought he could go into 200/200 fight against every form of protoss splash without ghosts to help him, and he paid the price by getting crushed horribly.

Killer went for a DT expand, balancing his gas expenditure and chronoboost usage beautifully to hold off Optimus' two barracks attack. Optimus was in turn totally unprepared for the DT follow-up, and was forced into an all-in situation.

Optimus almost finished the game with his remaining scans and offensive missile turrets, but Killer held on with a clutch decision to turn his Dts into an archon.

Huk went for a one gate expand while Alive went for a two barracks pressure into expand. Huk held off the pressure with some fantastic force fields, immediately following with a robotics facility that predicted Alive's switch to cloaked banshees.

Huk held the banshee with a perfectly timed observer, and then held Alive's follow-up push just as easily. Huk played it safe from there, grabbing a third base and making a big army to take the game.

Both players chose to not-4-gate, with Huk choosing blink stalkers while Killer went for a fast robo instead. Huk's attack hit at a precise timing, destroying Killer's army before the immortal could finish building.

Optimus was able to open with a small marine tank push while shutting down Alive's blue flame hellions to get an early contain on his opponent. Optimus essentially kept that contain up for the entire portion of the game that actually mattered, minimizing his losses until he had battlecruisers to finish the deal.

Optimus went for a hellion opening that did some early damage to Killer, but both players manage to get their expansions up. Optimus gets a drop off that does some nice damage to Killer's sentry based expansion. After that, there wasn't much action as both players secured third bases and build up some huge armies.

The two players traded wins and losses in several large scale engagements, but no one could really win a decisive victory. Optimus was finally able to secure a lead by changing his strategy, choosing to drop with a portion of his forces instead of keeping them concentrated in the middle of the map.

Killer allowed a lot of his key production buildings to get killed off as his entire force was away trying to pick more fights with Optimus' army. Killer couldn't keep up in production after the next big battle, and was forced to GG.

Inca went gasless gate-forge to attempt a zealot cannon rush against Kyrix, which seemed to have potential as Kyrix did not save larva for zerglings as his pool completed. However, Inca demonstrated some laughable micro and allowed his crucial offensive probe to get killed by drones, delaying his offensive cannon by a large amount of time. Kyrix was able to hold off the attack very easily and further extend his lead with a crippling zergling counter attack. Kyrix safely built on his lead, taking his time before deciding to crush Inca with four base hydra-roach.

Kyrix: 3.5/5Good micro against the early attack, though it was rather accentuated by Inca's own poor micro.

After thwarting Bomber's early two barracks pressure, Kyrix let his guard down completely and somehow nearly died to a simple 11 marine poke. It looked like Kyrix was on his way to certain macro death in the near future, but he caught a break when Bomber got over ambitious with a mid-game marine-marauder attack and donated the force to Kyrix's double-lings. This opened a window for Kyrix to do a fast follow-up baneling bust, but unfortunately Bomber had enough siege tanks to defend himself. With his bust thwarted, the previously delayed macro death become a reality for Kyrix as he just couldn't deal with Bomber's mass marine-tank.

There were some cute mind games in this inter-team PvP with MC going 1 gate robotics straight into speedzealot + immortal, while Inca did a four-gate fake into the very same composition.

The problem here for Inca was that the fake didn't seem to serve much purpose as it gave him the same composition as his opponent, but having the disadvantage of being slower in tech. The way it played out, MC just holed up in his base until he had a force he was comfortable with, pushed out, and completely outmicroed Inca in a decisive battle to win the game.

It was entirely predictable that MC would go for his favored fast expand into stargate build, but somehow Kyrix managed to botch his defense. He was sort of prepared by having a hydralisk den out, but his sense of timing turned out to be off by a fatal thirty seconds or so. MC pushed out three voidrays much faster than Kyrix seemed to expect and he ended up doing a huge amount with these units.

Kyrix eventually restored order to his base, but by then MC was already well on his way to putting together a deadly two colossus + gateway army. After taking so much early damage, Kyrix didn't have an answer for that kind of firepower.

MC: 3/5Kyrix: 1/5

The Top 10 TheBest (Worst) Code-S Glamor Photos

by Fionn

When you think of GSL Code S, you don't think of Nestea, MVP, or MC. You don't think of the Casting Archon. You don't even think of how terrible every single final has been and wondering why you even watch if the payoff is going to be so awful. No, when you think of Code S, you think of only one thing: awkward professional gamers in too much makeup.

Yes, with the new Code S season in July, we've seen the transformation of our favorite progamers into male K-Pop idols. Some of them, truthfully, pulled off the makeup pretty well. For others? Well, I'm pretty sure they will have nightmares of their teammates making fun of them after seeing their glamor portraits.

10. Nestea - The Goth of Zerg

The God of Zerg has suddenly turned into a man wearing all black with deep eyeliner. Why? Couldn't you leave him alone, GOM!? Is anything sacred anymore!? To be fair, Nestea doesn't look as bad as some other players who got the makeup treatment, but he might be the weirdest in the makeup. MarineKing? Yeah, I can see him wearing some eyeliner, but Nestea? I never thought I would see him in this much makeup.

9. TOP - Biker Punk + Mascara = Tough?

TOP got tired of looking cute for the girls, so now he's a tough badass. If you ever wanted to know what a Korean motorcyclist would look in heavy makeup, just look at TOP and you have your answer. I wonder if his fangirls will approve of this new look?

8. Optimus - Killer Eyes

I was going to write something about our defending champion Optimus/Polt/Poltimus (whatever you prefer), but I got lost staring into his eyes and couldn't think of anything else to write. Scary.

7. FruitDealer - Manly Man in Makeup

With this picture, FruitDealer shows us that a true man does not shave before putting globs of makeup on. While other competitors might look less masculine in their pictures, FruitDealer offsets the mascara by having messy hair and unkempt facial hair. If you saw this guy walking down a dark alley, would you mess with him? His eyes might have eyeliner on, but his facial hair says that he'll still beat your face in with a banana.

6. MarineKing - Male Model Extraordinaire

As I mentioned earlier, when thinking of GSL players in makeup, you think MarineKing could look pretty good, right? Well, to me, he really doesn't look all that different in makeup. It actually looks like he's trying to pose for the front of a magazine cover. You know what it really reminds me of? The movie Zoolander, a comedy about models, that has one facial pose they use called Blue Steel. To me, MarineKing is trying to bring out his best Ben Stiller impression and put on the Blue Steel pose.

MarineKing might as well call it Silver Steel.

5. Genius - Vulcan Toss

All I can think of when I see this is picture is Spock from Star Trek. Maybe it's the eyebrows, haircut, or the effect on Genius' ear that makes it look pointed, but he just reminds me of a vulcan. Thanks, GSL, now every time I see him play, I'm going to hear the Star Trek theme playing in the background. Live long and prosper, Genius. Live long and prosper.

I wonder if Genius can do the vulcan salute?

4. Clide - Claudette?

We all know Artosis loves Clide, and I'm pretty sure that this picture is what he imagines before going to sleep at night. I really don't know what's going on in this picture. He has pink lipstick on, his eyeliner is done just right, and is that some blush I see on his cheeks? Honestly, Clide doesn't look that half bad. If you got super drunk one night at a bar and were looking for a girl to take home, Claudette wouldn't be your last choice. Hey, I've seen worse girls. Put some earrings on that picture and you have Korea's Next Top Model.

3. Anypro - Homer Simpson or Serial Killer?

Usually when you see Anypro, you think, 'Hey, that guy kinda looks like a character from the Simpons!', or you think, 'Wow, those are some really gigantic glasses he has on!' From previous interviews, Anypro has indulged that he doesn't care about his looks. While MarineKing, Poltimus and Maka might get the fangirls, Anypro only cares about the game itself. With this new portrait, he was transformed from a cartoon character into someone you would see in a Korean horror movie who stands behind people with a gigantic knife. Would you let Anypro babysit your little sister? I know I wouldn't.

This is before he was turned into a super villain.

2. HongUn - Back to the 80's

...Hm...how do I even comment on this one? Just look at the hair! Like Anypro, his toss teammate, the makeup artist totally transformed him from his normal look. Also, just like Anypro, they both look like they could be killers in a Korean horror movie. HongUn looks like you have wronged him in the past and he wants to get revenge on you. If he grows his hair out some more, he might resemble Edward Sccissorhands. Gotta say, HongUn does have some nice skin in that portrait. Nice job, Mysterious GSL Makeup Artist!

1. Alicia - The Situation Toss

Alright, making this top ten was pretty tough. Nine through two were pretty hard and can be flipped around whatever way you like, but #1? This is a clear cut winner. No other portrait comes close to this one. What the hell did they do to Alicia? What kind of makeup did they put on his face? Did they make him suntan for twelve hours before taking the picture? He looks like he is about to audition for the Korean version of The Jersey Shore. If they didn't put the name Alicia next to the picture of the very orange teenager, I probably would have no clue who it was. Without question, Alicia wins this competition hands down. I need to investigate how and why this picture came to be and what the thought process was behind it.

Welcome to the family, Alicia.

So there you have it. Do you like the new makeup intro pictures? Do you think they're awful and make you less likely to show the GSL to friends? Let us know. Personally? I think some of them are pretty damn silly, but I have looked forward to every night of Code S to see how funny each player will look in their glamor photo.

Let me pitch an idea to Mr. Chae and everyone at the GSL for the next Code S. If you're going to do the makeup, go all the way. I want to see all the players in costumes. Make Nestea dress up like a college professor. Have the Prime team put on wigs and cosplay as Rainbow. Take Huk and dress him up like Dexter, the heroic serial killer. If QXC makes it into Code A, give him a hook for a hand and call him a pirate. Talk about ratings, people! Who doesn't wanna see QXC dressed up as a pirate? I know I do!

Hey HP can you redo everything youve ever done because i have a small complaint?

BWhaha. Jersey shore with Alicia. Jesus honestly none of those photos look remotely decent. MKP's is the best because it looks... relatively normal, but that zoolander comparison was low. Real low.

Really regretting not having a pass to see Nada t.t

Biomine is a drunken chick who is on industrial strength amphetamines and would just grab your dick and jerk it as hard and violently as she could while screaming 'OMG FUCK ME', because she saw it in a Sasha Grey video ...-Wombat_Ni

Love the Huk bias :D Compared to his opponents he was definitely 5/5, but if he was 5/5 then so was Leenock.Shame he didn't have a real photo taken. Real men aren't afraid of a little makeup (Alicia had every right to be afraid though).Situation Toss is a fantastic name!